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Troggs

Troggs are a race of subterranean humanoids that infest in the depths of natural caverns throughout the Aelutian Empire – and are usually only encountered when a mining operation stumbles upon one of the tunnels leading to their nests..

Completely hairless, sightless and of limited intelligence, they have a low cunning and will usually attack by ambushing or when they hopelessly outnumber anything they consider to be an intruder, attacking with precisely crafted and scalpel sharp shards of obsidian and launching opportunistic attacks before quickly retreating when confronted.

They make up for a complete lack of eyes with an incredible sense of hearing and the ability to emit sonar like clicks, and use slightly higher pitched clicking sounds as their primitive language. Moving with surprising speed, they can actually ‘see’ quite well using sonar are able to navigate normally even in pitch blackness.

Due to their extremely hard stony hides, normal weapons barely hurt them and may even chip, bend or break. However a magical sword cuts them readily enough, and they can be easily enough dispatched by a good swipe or thrust from an Aelutian Gladius Coronatite Gladius

Curiously, Troggs do not eat animals or vegetables, but minerals. While they can actually subsist eating nutrient rich soils, small rocks and even farm harmless 5-6′ long underground worms in their network of tunnels and caverns for their wastes, they seek out and crave precious stones, ores and minerals, which they ingest with diamond hard, plate like teeth (the only thing they cannot crunch in their mouths is diamonds, which they disdain and consider of no value). As such, a bite from a Trogg is not something to be trifled with, and if it makes sense, bite they will..

They usually can be found in nests with several hundred individuals, but some mega nests with thousands have been uncovered on occasion. Curiously, they do not seem to be of any discernible sex, seem have no leaders, nor apparent organization but appear to operate more or less instinctively. While they are extremely xenophobic and will attempt to kill and drive away any perceived threat to their nest, they never take brash risks when confronting intruders, leading to the slightly vulgar Imperial saying “as cautious as bloody Trogg”..

Exactly how they reproduce is not known, however once they have settled in an area, they will slowly come back in number at a slightly different location and if not regularly cleared by a ‘Trogg sweep’ (a dangerous and thankless task), but at least Trogg sweeps are usually supplied with at least a magic sword, shield and reinforced armor that is hard for the shards of obsidian to pierce and thick enough so that they cannot bite in the ultimate game of cat and mouse..

TROGG SAYINGS IN THE IMPERIAL LEXICON

“As Cautious as a Bloody Trogg”

“Keeps coming back like a bloody Trogg Nest”

“As blind as a Trogg”

“So (meat/bread is tough only a Trogg could eat it”

“A meal fit for a Trogg”

“As Ugly as a Trogg”

And any other number of popular sayings about something persistent, tough, blind ugly or that you wish it would, but doesn’t go away.